Dialogues on Human Rights and Legal Pluralism

Human rights have transformed the way in which we conceive the place of the individual within the community and in relation to the state in a vast array of disciplines, including law, philosophy, politics, sociology, geography. The published output on human rights over the last five decades has been enormous, but has remained tightly bound to a notion of human rights as dialectically linking the individual and the state. Because of human rights’ dogged focus on the state and its actions, they have very seldom attracted the attention of legal pluralists. Indeed, some may have viewed the two as simply incompatible or relating to wholly distinct phenomena. This collection of essays is the first to bring together authors with established track records in the fields of legal pluralism and human rights, to explore the ways in which these concepts can be mutually reinforcing, delegitimizing, or competing. The essays reveal that there is no facile conclusion to reach but that the question opens avenues which are likely to be mined for years to come by those interested in how human rights can affect the behaviour of individuals and institutions.

Acknowledgments.- Contents.- Contributors.- About the Contributors.- Introduction: Human Rights through Legal Pluralism; René Provost and Colleen Sheppard.- Part I. Universality and Plurality: Foundational Claims.- Pluralistic Human Rights? Universal Human Wrongs?; Roderick A. Macdonald.- E Pluribus Unum – Bhinneka Tunggal Ika?  Universal Human Rights and the Fragmentation of International Law; Carlos Iván Fuentes, René Provost and Sam Walker.- International Human Rights and Global Legal Pluralism: A Research Agenda Frédéric Mégret.- Part II. Human Rights Values and Multiple Legal Orders: Connections and Contradictions.- The Protection of Human Dignity in Contemporary Legal Pluralism; Jean-Guy Belley.- Equality through the Prism of Legal Pluralism; Colleen Sheppard.- Labour Law in Canada as a Site of Legal Pluralism; Guylaine Vallée.- The Rigidity and Density of Discipline in Youth Rehabilitation Centres … Or Rules that Counter Rights; Julie Desrosiers.- Reconceptualising Social and Economic Rights: The right to housing and intersecting legal regimes; Jane Matthews Glenn.- Part III. Communities, Human Rights and Local Practices.- Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping the Middle; Sally Engle Merry.- Thinking about Indigenous Legal Orders; Val Napoleon.- Wives’ Tales on Research in Bountiful; Angela Campbell.- Bibliography; Selected Bibliography on Human Rights and Legal Pluralism.- Index.